Andrew Carnegie 175 in 2010

January 11th, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
This year is the 175th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie. He was born on November 25, 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. This anniversary provides an opportunity for the nation and especially communities that received library building grants from Carnegie to celebrate his library legacy. I put together a small 175th anniversary tribute on my Library History Buff website using images of some of the items in my librariana collection. I also have a page on my website with links to some of the web resources related to Carnegie's library legacy. I will be making a number of posts featuring Carnegie this year. The cartoon above is from Harper's Weekly April 11, 1903. It was accompanied by this poem:

"We men are only lusty boys,
Though snowy be our locks,
So Skibo's master still enjoys
To sit and play with blocks."

Skibo Castle was Carnegie's home in Scotland which he purchased after accumulating one of the largest personal fortunes in history.

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Mary Frances Isom and Portland’s Public Library

January 7th, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »














I recently became aware of an article about Mary Frances Isom written by Penny Hummel which is on the website of the Multnomah County Library (Portland, Oregon) website. I highly recommend the article and commend the Multnomah County Library for acknowledging an important part of its heritage on the library's website. Isom was head librarian of the Library Association of Portland, a predecessor of the Multnomah County Library, from 1902 to 1920. Although, the Library Association of Portland began as a subscription library in 1864, it became Oregon's first tax-supported free public library in 1902 when Isom became head librarian. Among Isom's many accomplishments was a new central library building completed in 1913 with the assistance of a grant from Andrew Carnegie. Isom was instrumental in the passage of a state law creating the Oregon Library Commission (predecessor to the Oregon State Library) which was influenced by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. Isom served on the new commission and recruited Cornelia Marvin, a staff member of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, to serve as the Secretary of the Oregon Library Commission. Both Isom and Marvin are among America's great early librarians. The postcard above shows the 1893 building of the Library Association of Portland which was replaced by the Carnegie building.

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Armed Services Editions in WWII

January 6th, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
John Jamieson in his book Books For The Army: The Army Library Service In The Second World War (Columbia University Press, 1950) says this about the Armed Services Editions: "The outstanding achievement in the history of the wartime activities of the Army Library Service was the production and distribution of the paperbound books known as Armed Services Editions. It was the best organized and most efficiently operated of all the activities in which the Army Library Service had a part, and with the possible exception of the overseas distribution of magazines, it directly affected the largest number of soldiers. Indeed, for the bulk of our troops overseas, Armed Services Editions were the only books that were widely and easily accessible." The Armed Services Editions project was a cooperative effort involving army and navy agencies, publishers, printers, and a variety of other entities. The project was coordinated by the Council on Books in Wartime. According to Jamieson, between the fall of 1943 and the fall of 1947, 1,322 titles were printed and a total of 122,951,031 volumes were delivered to the army and navy overseas. On February 17, 1983, the Library of Congress celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Armed Services Editions. One result of that celebration was the publication of the book Books In Action: The Armed Services Editions, edited by John Y. Cole (Library of Congress, 1984). The Library of Congress has placed the contents of that book online. Between April 20 and September 10, 1996, the University of Virginia which has a large collection of the Armed Forces Editions put on an exhibit about the books. A virtual representation of that exhibit entitled "Books Go To War" is located here. The online publication edited by Cole includes a complete list of the books in the Armed Forces Editions. The Library of Congress has a complete set of the Armed Services Editions and the University of Alabama Library also has a set. The Princeton University Library also has a large collection of the books and the archival files of the Council on Books in Wartime are located in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Prinecton. The book shown above is from my personal collection.

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Mudie’s Select Library

January 5th, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Mudie's Select Library was a for-profit lending library established by Charles Edward Mudie (1818-1890) in London, England in 1842. Initially, for one guinea a year an individual could borrow unlimited books from the library one at a time. Mudie's Select Library and similar for-profit libraries were referred to as "circulating libraries". David Kaser's A Book For A Sixpence: The Circulating Library in America (Beta Phi Mu, 1980) discusses this library format in the United States. In his book Kaser indicates that Mudie's library was probably the largest such library ever established and at one point contained over seven million volumes. The economic model for distributing books to the public created by Mudie had an enormous impact on publishing in England in the 19th century. That impact is described here by George P. Landow of Brown University. Guinevere L. Griest's Mudie's Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Indiana Univ. Press, 1970) has a more comprehensive discussion of that impact. In 1864 Mudie's Select Library was converted into a limited company which sold shares. The share shown above was issued on October 26, 1864. Seymour Eaton's Booklovers Library, a similar enterprise in the United States, which was established at the beginning of the 20th century was probably greatly influenced by Mudie's library.

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Traveling Libraries

January 4th, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Under the leadership of Melvil Dewey, the State of New York initiated a state funded traveling library system in 1892. Traveling libraries were small rotating collections that provided a method for extending library service to rural areas. These small libraries usually from 30 to a hundred books were located in a post office, a store, or someone's home with a volunteer acting as the caretaker of the collection. Michigan initiated a similar system in 1895. Iowa and Wisconsin followed in 1896. Many other states also adopted this model of public library extension including among others California, Idaho, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Other interesting traveling library efforts were the Seaboard Airline Railway Free Traveling Library System and the United States Lighthouse Service Traveling Library. In 1897 the Wisconsin Free Library Commission published a 39 page booklet entitled Free Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin: The Story of Their Growth, Purposes, and Development; With Accounts of a Few Kindred Movements. The cover of the publication is shown above. The cover includes the statement: "It is after all, not the few great libraries, but the thousand small ones, that may do most for the people". The booklet has been digitized by the Wisconsin Historical Society and can be viewed here. More about traveling libraries in the United States can be found here. Historian Joanne E. Passet has written about traveling libraries in "Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in America, 1892-1920," Libraries & Culture, 26 (Winter 1991): 100-118.

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